


At The Still Point of the Turning World

by rebeccabuck



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, First Meetings, Fix-It, Flowers, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Language of Flowers, M/M, Memories, Past Lives, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recognition, Reincarnation, Repetition, Romance, Second Chances, Slow Burn, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1512713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccabuck/pseuds/rebeccabuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of refractions throughout time, wherein two supposedly fixed points continually come together and fall apart.</p>
<p>Or: given enough chances for a do-over, perhaps, eventually, anyone can get it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At The Still Point of the Turning World

**Author's Note:**

> "We have travelled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation." - Tom Stoppard, _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_. From the same play: "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said – no. But somehow we missed it." Some stories move inexorably to the same fate time and time again, no matter how hard those trapped within them scramble to stop it. This started because I got to wondering why _The Hobbit_ ended the way it did, when it always seemed to me that it wasn't one of those stories - that it was more a question of mistakes unfixed than fixed trajectories. Title is from "Burnt Norton", the first of Eliot's _Four Quartets_.

 

 

 

 

>  "When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore." 
>
>> -Tom Stoppard,  _Arcadia_

> "'You are safe with me.'  
>  'I am not at all safe, with you. But I have no desire to be elsewhere.'"
>
>> -AS Byatt,  _Possession_
> 
> "She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. Why do we destroy ourselves?"
> 
>           -Alan Garner,  _The Owl Service_
> 
>  

* * *

 

 

"Frodo!  What have I told you about _thinking_  about how to put together a bouquet?"

Bilbo Baggins hustles over to his nephew where he is near-engulfed by flowers behind their work table, and gently pries the blossoms from his hand, separating the foxgloves from the rest and putting them to the side.

"But they looked good together, Uncle Bilbo," Frodo protests, obviously perplexed.  "The blues compliment each other perfectly."

"There's more to building a flower arrangement than just the colours, my boy, as I have told you  _before_.  The flowers themselves must compliment each other, too.  You wouldn't seat me beside your Aunt Lobelia at a dinner party, now would you?"

"I don't know..." Frodo grins mischieviously, "it might be worth the entertainment value."

Bilbo swats at him halfheartedly.  "Cheeky little bugger!  But it's the same with flowers.  You need to listen to them and figure out what they're likely to say to each other."

"Your flower language thing, I know," Frodo says, and even manages not to sound bored.

"It's not  _my_  thing, and you very well know it.  Flowers have had meanings assigned them for a very long time.  Every bloom is a way of communicating something, and like any language you should respect the attempt.  Place corresponding flowers together, let them enhance each other's message, and you get a bouquet that actually means something.  Throw a bunch of competing messages together and the end result might look pretty, but it will express nothing special, and then you might as well buy a bundle of tulips from the grocer's."

"What's wrong with the foxgloves, then?"

Bilbo plucks up a stalk of the flower and places it jauntily behind his ear, smiling fondly at his nephew.  Frodo is young and easily distracted, but not so flippant as he likes to pretend.  He will learn, slowly, and so long as he continues wanting to, Bilbo will teach him.

"Foxgloves are tricky, that's the problem.  They're very pretty, and very poisonous, and the same goes for their meaning - sometimes they stand for love and healing, and sometimes for hurt.  They're fickle, insincere things, and unless you're very sure you know what they're saying it's best not to use them in an arrangement.  Too much possibility for mistakes."

A throat clears behind the two of them, and they both jump.  Bilbo whirls to greet their customer, flustered at having not heard the bell signifying someone entering the store and having been caught waxing poetic by a person who likely will have no interest in the matter, and stops short to stare, struck cold by the man in front of him.

The man is clad in the type of heavy and expensive grey wool overcoat and blue silk scarf that would normally have Bilbo pegging him for a City worker of some type or another, but something about his broad shoulders, not to mention the thick beard and tangle of long, dark hair he sports, has him reconsidering the generalization.  Bright grey-blue eyes -  _I have seen those eyes before_  (But where?  And how?  Bilbo is equally certain that he has never met this man before in his life.) - are looking back at him from over a strong nose, and for a moment Bilbo is wildly, uncannily certain that the man is as startled by Bilbo's appearance as he is his, but then their gaze shifts slightly to the flower behind his ear, and Bilbo relaxes, thinks to himself  _no, no, of course not, he's just confused by the strange flower man, of course he is_.

"Welcome to Baggins' Flowers," Frodo, bless his heart, chirps at the man, giving Bilbo a further second to collect himself - and why has the appearance of a customer, of all things, gotten him so rattled?  "Are you looking for something specific?"

"A gift," the man says slowly.  "For my sister's birthday.  I had been going to say that this blue was the perfect colour for her" - and here he gestures to the remaining foxgloves lying discarded on the table before raising his eyes to meet Bilbo's almost hesitantly, if ever anything this man did could be called hesitant - "but I think, perhaps, not, after all?"

Bilbo can feel a flush beginning to creep up his neck.  Definitely at least part of his lecture was overheard, then.  But the man is not mocking him, merely acknowledging his words, and so he shakes himself and puts on a businesslike smile.  This is not the first Londoner to find him odd, he reminds himself, and this shop and the flowers in it are his livelihood and his life.  There's nothing wrong with caring about them.  He squares his shoulders and steps forward, slipping into his efficient service mode.

"For your sister, you said?  And it's necessary they be blue?"  At the man's confirming nod, he allows his smile to widen.  "I've got just the thing.  Give me a moment, give me a moment - ah, here we are."

He pulls a cluster of blue hyacinths from a bucket near his feet and presents them to the man, who raises his eyebrows.  

"Bluebells?"

Bilbo frowns.  "Too simple? I can -"

He is cut off.  "No, no, they're fine.  She used to pick them herself, actually, when we were children.  I had forgotten."  

The man frowns and looks down as soon as he's spoken, as though he'd not meant to say all that.  Bilbo takes pity on him as he adds some harebells to the bunch and shapes them into a pleasing cluster.  "These are Scottish bluebells, or harebells," he says, keeping the conversation to flowers.  He knows them, and though the other man clearly doesn't, at least it is neutral, professional talk, here in a flower shop.  "Like Christina Rossetti - 'hope is a harebell', you know?"

Of all the possible responses to that, Bilbo is not expecting a blinding smile.  "Yes," the man says softly, his shoulders sloping differently than they had before. "'But the rose with all his thorns excels them both'," he quotes back.

And Bilbo - Bilbo is utterly lost.  

"Yes, um, yes," he stutters out, and then turns his attention to tying up the bouquet, a simple cord of twine and white fabric ribbon in a bow, to keep the pleasingly simple rustic look.  He does not look up until he is wrapping the flowers in paper and hears Frodo ringing in the man's purchase. 

When his customer turns to collect his bundle, Bilbo forces himself to smile up at him.  "Well then, I hope your sister likes them.  And a very happy birthday to her."

His reply is a solemn nod.  "Thank you, Mister Baggins.  And a good day to you."

With that, he turns and sweeps out of the shop, certain and unflinching in his movements, as his coat flaps behind him.  Bilbo watches him go, feeling oddly adrift all of the sudden, and rather like a less-fortunate Antonio, with no clever Portia nearby to save him.  But he has forgotten Frodo, who sidles up beside his uncle and sets a cup of tea before him.  Bilbo startles, realizing how long he must have been stood there, unmoving, and wraps his hands around the mug, allowing its warmth to sink into them.

"His name is Thorin Durin," Frodo says softly.  "I made sure to check it on his card while he was paying."

Bilbo should draw himself up, should protest that he was only startled by the man's sudden appearance, should to something to forestall the mocking he knows will come his way once his nephew is certain there's no reason to be concerned.  But he can't bring himself to do any of those things, and so he only favours Frodo with a distracted smile, continuing to gaze out the shop window.

"Thorin..."

 

* * *

 

 

That night, Bilbo dreams of richness.  Of a vast, shining rainbow of treasures, all hard and gleaming - dead and utterly cold.  Of danger and terror and comradeship.  Of the clash of steel and the taste of blood.  Of a strong, yielding warmth at his back, and darkness, and a deep, empty cavern.  It all comes in fits and flashes, coded in riddles and overlaid with the sickly sheen of madness - whether his or another's, he cannot tell - but he knows he dreams of hope, and devastation, and loneliness, and fire, and fire, and fire.

When he wakes with a shout, the sheets and pillow are soaked with sweat and tears.

He does not fall back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

 Dís looks up as her younger son throws himself carelessly into a chair on the other side of her desk.

"Those are pretty flowers, Mother," he says.  "Did Ori give them to you?"

"No, these were from your uncle, believe it or not.  I had trouble myself."

Kíli perks up, and Fíli wanders over from where he had been reading by the fireplace to see.  He leans over Kíli's chair curiously.

"Those are from Uncle Thorin?  Really?  But they're so.."

Dís smiles.  "Tasteful?  Sweet?  Innocent, almost?"

Her eldest grins at her, as Kíli leans forward to sniff the bouquet.  "Something like that, yes."

"It seems Thorin may have finally gotten the message that spending extravagantly is not the only way gift to someone you care about.  Either that or he's hit his head, I suppose.  Still, they are pretty, aren't they?"

"Very," Kíli says, standing to give her a kiss on the cheek.  "And they smell nice, too."

Fíli gives her a kiss of his own.  "Are you coming now, then?  We want to take you for your birthday dinner."

She pats him on the cheek.  "I'll be right there, my boys.  Just let me get organized.  Why don't you check to see who's coming with us, while you wait."

"It had better be everyone, for your birthday!" Kíli declares, but they still race each other out of the office, a flurry of elbows and scuffling ensuing when they reach the door at the same time.

Dís huffs a laugh and turns to shut down her computer.  As she is organizing the papers on her desk, the telltale sound of her brother's cleared throat lets her know he is leaning in her doorway.  She looks up, and sure enough he is standing awkwardly in the threshold, obviously waiting for acknowledgement.

"Come in, you don't need to skulk like that.  I hope you're not bowing out of my dinner," she says.

He scowls.  "Of course not.  I was just..."

As his pause grows into silence and he stares down at her desk, Dís forces herself not to raise her eyebrows.  Thorin has been acting strange all day, constantly lost in thought and failing to pay attention to what has been going on around him.  For a man usually professional to the point of being tiring, it is very odd behaviour.  Perhaps they're about to get to the bottom of it without any coaxing and threats from her, or the aid of a great deal of claret.  She waits patiently for him to speak, and is rewarded when he shakes his head abruptly and looks up to meet her gaze.  Not that his next question gives her much in the way of a clue.

"Have I ever bought you flowers before?" he asks.

"Some of those massive arrangement monstrosities a few times, yes," she says. 

Thorin looks strangely frustrated at that.  "No," he says, "I mean..." and gestures to the bluebells.

"You mean have you ever actually bought and brought me flowers, as opposed to ordering the most expensive bouquet and having them delivered?"  He nods.  "No, not that I can remember."

If possible, Thorin frowns even harder at that.  "Thank you.  I will be down to leave for your birthday dinner in a few moments," he says, and sweeps out of her office without looking back.

Dís leans against her desk and looks after him for a moment, before regarding her present thoughtfully.  She rummages in the recycling beside her desk and pulls out the little card that had been tucked into the paper wrapped round the flowers to keep them safe.

"Baggins' Flowers," she hums to herself.

Kíli's head pops around her doorframe.  "Are you coming, Mother?" he demands.  "Everyone's ready!"

"Right now, my sweet," she assures him, and slips the card into her purse.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is definitely going to be the shortest of them all. I wanted to set everything up without putting too much here at the front, and hopefully I've managed that.
> 
> This fic has a soundtrack I made to listen to while writing it, here: http://8tracks.com/iartharach/at-the-still-point-of-the-turning-world
> 
> And my long and utterly self-indulgent notes for this chapter and the rest will be kept here: http://sea-change.tumblr.com/post/83649527563/at-the-still-point-notes


End file.
